Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!
Have you ever found a kitten in a box on the street? Maybe you have. But have you ever found seven cats in a few days?
That is what happens to Kanda Sorata in the anime (based on light novels) さくら荘のペットな彼女 Sakura-sō no Petto na Kanojo, The Pet Girl of Sakura Dormitory
Maid-chan calculates the chances for this to happen are about 712 million to one, but stranger things have happened.
Not strange is that Sorata has to leave the normal dormitory of the high school affiliated with Suimei University of the Arts, where pets are forbidden. He has no other choice as to move into the Sakurasou.
The Sakurasou is known in the school for being the home of the strangest students. It is led by the teacher Sengoku Chihiro, who once was a Sakurasou student herself and most of the time does not care at all what the students now living there do. Which maybe is good, Maid-chan thinks, because the inhabitants are:
Kamiigusa Misaki: A self-declaring alien, the small and outgoing Misaki-senpai only lives for animes and Jin. She could already live off of her income from her animes. She is totally in love with her childhood friend Jin.
Mitaka Jin: Jin-senpai is cool, except at his birthdays, because Misaki brings him strange presents then – herself, clad in… no, you would not believe Maid-chan, you have to see it yourself.
Jin is a womanizer par excellence. He needs a calendar to organize his dates with the nurse, the secretary, the…
Maid-chan would never do this for him, even though calendar functions are one of her many strong points!
Akasaka Ryūnosuke: At the time when Sorata moves in, Misaki, Jin and Ryūnosuke-sama are the only inhabitants of the Sakurasou, but people seldom see him. This is because Ryūnosuke-sama is a genius programmer, the best in the world and always busy working, so he nearly never leaves his room. Ryūnosuke-sama is also very very handsome, but girls should not come close to him, because he has gynophobia. But even if he had not, no girl should come close to him, understood?!
Shiina Mashiro: Mashiro is the cousin of Chihiro, living in England. She is a world-famous painter, but lives in her own world even more then the alien Misaki.
As Mashiro one day decides to paint manga, Chihiro has to care for her. Since it is Chihiro, she takes the very first opportunity to place that burden on Sorata and orders him to fetch Mashiro from the train station.
When meeting Mashiro, Sorata gets a double surprise. First is that Mashiro is considerably older then on the picture he got from Chihiro.
Second, Mashiro is totally unable to live on her own.
Sorata ends up with “Mashiro duty”, which includes everything about Mashiro that has no connection to painting, including clothing her.
Maid-chan thinks Sorata is quite dense for not refusing this. Of course most humans are quite dense, but Sorata is especially dense.
Aoyama Nanami: Nanami is the last one who enters the Sakurasou, and while she claims it is because of the money, the main reason is probably Sorata. Nanami has a crush on Sorata and he is the only one who does not get it. Did Maid-chan hinted at that he is dense?
Nanami tries to get into the voice actor business and has to do it with her own money alone, which often leaves her quite overworked from her part-time job, school and VA school. When angry or flustered she starts speaking in Kansai dialect.
Maid-chan does not have such unintentional speech defects!
Character, Character, Character!
The love-comedy anime definitely has its core in the assortment of strange characters and their various relations to each other. Even Maid-chan has to smile when Misaki-senpai uses her own personal escalator to make a game-attack on Sorata.
On the other side is the shy beauty Mashiro, who looks at other persons with the comprehension of a puppy looking at a Hurricane.
Even Maid-chan is moved when some sort of comprehension finally crosses the smooth face of that girl!
Of course that does not happen often. This is especially true when some new, prior unknown feelings creep into Mashiro’s heart.
Both the story and the feelings slowly move on, creating new drama and tears of happiness with time.
There is also a marriage. Sort of. And a cat girl. Sort of.
Voice and Art
The anime has high-quality paintings, as it is fit for an anime that has a genius painter as a main character. As with Mashiro’s works, the anime likes to play with light effects, often creating a very soft feeling. Maid-chan likes the style!
The (japanese) voice actors all do a good job, though Maid-chan somehow cannot like the voice of Nanami. It feels like Nanami causes interference in Maid-chan’s cables.
The best may be Misaki’s Takamori Natsumi who is able to get you off your comfy couch just by shouting “come, kohai!”
Conclusion
Sakurasou is a definite “must watch” 10-star rating on the totally objective Maid-chan scale! And even if the anime centers on Mashiro and Sorata, the best character is of course the genius programmer, who saves them and the Sakurasou more then once!
If you still haven’t watched Sakura-sou no Petto na Kanojo, put it on top of your list!
See you next time!